putting down roots in Maine

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I have not died or otherwise disappeared off the face of the earth. I simply have been engrossed in worlds other than blogging. Now my challenge is to condense nine months packed with living into one blog post. We have gone from spring mists

to fall mists

to this

since I last wrote. Here goes …

One reason I dropped out of the blogosphere was because Capp became terribly ill in July. Seemingly overnight, he went from a happy-go-lucky, just-turning-two-year-old lab, full of mischief and swagger, to a ball of misery who didn’t want to leave his crate.

After time at the local dog emergency clinic and with our local vet, his mystery condition was bumped up to the veterinary specialists in Portland, an hour-and-a-half from home. He almost died.

Home after tests with lots of shaved spots.

He spent three days at the Portland vet on an IV and undergoing a battery of tests. At first the fear was cancer, but it turned out that he had immune-mediated neutropenia, which was causing his white blood cells to drop to treacherously low levels. After six months on prednisone, and other drugs, he is finally back to our old Capp.

We still don’t know exactly what caused his condition. The theories are a reaction to immunizations or perhaps a tick-borne disease (although he tested negative for all the common ones). He remains on a low dose of pred and must have regular blood tests, but we are so relieved that we didn’t lose him. He has become quite popular with the wonderful vets and technicians caring for him. One tech calls him “Cute Adorable Puppy Prince,” and it has stuck. Amazingly, we had pet insurance–the first we’ve ever had for a dog–and they really came through for us, too.

Throughout Capp’s illness, Alice has remained her sweet affectionate self.

Because of Capp’s illness, we have been sticking pretty close to home. In the spring, we consolidated our vegetable beds into two fenced-in gardens. “We” meaning George–he did all the fencing and leveling.

The gardens were lush and productive this year.

Flax.

We were eating our garden potatoes, sweet potatoes, squash, and onions well into February. I tried growing cotton this year, and it did well, but frost hit before the cotton fully developed.

Cotton blossom.

Next year, I will try hanging the bolls inside to continue to mature.

The vegetable beds. Much neater than last year.

George is getting really good at putting in trails.

We have a whole system that now reaches each corner of the property.

The first set of trails were named after the grandchildren. The next will be named after the dogs.

He also is building an outdoor, wood-fired sauna–something that I became enamored with during our years in Alaska.

Preparing for the sauna.

But the biggest project this year was building a garage.

We hired contractors to do most of the work, but George did much of the prep and finish work himself (he’s still doing finish work) and oversaw everything–not an easy task. The upstairs is an open space that will be half guest room and half an area for sewing, my small loom, and my really big spinning wheels. I inaugurated the space two weeks ago with a gathering of nine great wheel spinners from around mid-coast Maine. It was wonderful.

I have fallen deep into the spinning and weaving world. Old wheels just seem to follow me home and it gives me a thrill to work on them and get them spinning again.

Amazing wood on Shaker wheel from Alfred Lake, Maine.

They fascinate me with their beautiful wood, colors, craftsmanship, and history.

This European wheel, likely from Austria, was singed by being too close to the fire.

I am planning on doing a few presentations and classes on antique wheels with another friend this year.

Canadian Bisson wheel.

We’re hoping to convince lots of spinner to rescue these lovely wheels, so that they won’t be lost to future generations.

It’s amazing how beautifully the old wheels spin. I have continued to buy local fleeces–this year Romney/Finn, Gotland, and Cormo–because I enjoy the whole process of scouring, processing, dyeing, spinning, and weaving. It’s so satisfying to do it from start to finish.

Beautiful Cormo fleece. I will spin with this on the great wheels

And flax, well, I’m just in love with flax.

About a third of my line flax this year, all processed and ready to spin.

Home grown and dyed flax woven into tape on an antique tape loom.

In the spring, before Capp’s illness, I took an amazing flax course at Snow Farm in western Massachusetts with Cassie Dickson–a flax guru, coverlet weaver extraordinaire, and all-around wonderful person.

The flax Cassie brought was retted in various ways so that we could compare them.

The course was for five days and covered everything–planting, processing, spinning, dyeing, and weaving.

I felt so fortunate to learn from Cassie, she usually teaches in the South, closer to her North Carolina home. Here’s a link to Cassie’s site: CassieDickson. People in other Snow Farm classes were fascinated by the flax.

Flax that we processed, spun, and dyed at class.

There was in class in welding sculptures out of all sorts of found objects, aka junk, and the instructor and one of his students kindly made us stands to keep our cups of water for flax spinning.

I treasure mine.

In the fall, weaving took the spotlight.

I wove these on my small loom in the summer. Destined to be chair cushions.

I again traveled to western Massachusetts–this time to Vavstuga in Shelburne Falls for the introductory weaving course. What a treat. Having been–until recently–totally self-taught in weaving, I just soaked up all the years of knowledge shared through this wonderful weaving school.

A tablecloth being woven by a returning student.

The focus there is on Swedish weaving styles and looms, so it was especially timely for me because I had decided to buy a Swedish Oxaback loom. I was able to bring one home with me from Vavstuga and get right to work with it. Bliss.

Putting the first warp on my new loom.

I also really enjoyed Shelburne Falls. Every morning I went out early to the Bridge of Flowers, which spans the river right in front of the school, and chatted with the head gardener.

Every evening I walked down to the Falls, which were swollen with water after torrential downpours that we had on the second day.

I’m returning for another course in May. Can’t wait.

Current project on the loom. Overshot with handspun and naturally dyed wool and handspun linen tabby.

We have been rich in guests these past months, which has also kept us busy. We had family reunions in Connecticut and Massachusetts in July and both of our children, with their spouses, and the grandchildren were here for Thanksgiving. We had a big dump of snow, to the delight of the grandkids, who have never lived with snowy winters

Soap Sally, our creepy Thanksgiving snowperson, freaked out the dogs.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, so I really savored having the whole family here. The granddaughters took to weaving like fish to water.

Our daughter returned again in December with the grandkids and, while George stayed home with the dogs, we took a two night trip to Quebec City right before Christmas. It was magical.

And, of course, I brought home a beautiful Quebec wheel.

This post is starting to sound an awful lot like one of my mother’s holiday letters. But rather than edit it, I’m going to post it, as is. Or I may never get it done. I will try not to go so long between posts again. I have been posting pictures on Instagram under “olddogsnewtruck.” It’s more my speed these days. Happy Spring.

and the perfection of miniature leaves unrolling from their womb buds, still perfect and unmarred by disease or insects.

Birdsong wakes us in the morning and peepers put us to sleep at night.

I love the catbirds, because of their incredible vocal gymnastics and the mourning doves–who travel everywhere as a couple.

Our swooping, gurgling swallows are back. We weren’t sure they would be because our aggressive male bluebird chased them all off last year. After he harassed us all winter, we took down the nesting boxes in hopes that he would move on. He did. But not far. He is now harassing our across-the-street neighbors and launching himself at their windows. He thoughtfully finds time to visit us periodically to attack our cars and windows, just so we know he hasn’t forgotten us.

The female bluebird with the injured foot is back.

We still have lingering cold and the flowers are late to bloom, so the poor hummingbirds have been lining up at our nectar feeder.

The soil has been so cold that I’ve only planted a few vegetables, but we have overwintered parsnips, and green onions and spinach in the cold frame.

Our asparagus is up and in its third year, so we can harvest a decent amount. What a treat to have it fresh out of the garden. We are consolidating our scattered vegetable gardens this year into two big gardens. I’m ridiculously excited about it.

This 1950s tractor has its original engine, without even a rebuild. It will be drilling our fence post holes. It’s not ours, but we get to admire it.

There’s something about having fenced-in vegetable beds, with wide walkways–and plenty of room for flowers–that makes my heart happy. I’m growing more flax this year, a dye garden, and trying cotton–a wild experiment. This spring, we planted paw-paws, persimmons, more pears, hazelnuts, goji berries, maypops (passionflower), and mulberries (for silkworms). All of last year’s bushes and fruit trees survived the winter and appear to be thriving.

The peaches are covered with blossoms.

Spreading apple branches.

This is the time of year for morning fog and gathering, cutting and splitting next year’s firewood.

George is constructing an impressive fort of firewood, which we hope will get us through next winter. We ran out of wood this past winter, with its prolonged cold spells, and had to buy a cord.

We are finally having a garage built this year. We are NOT building it ourselves, thank goodness–we have enough on our plate without a major construction project. George is designing an outdoor sauna to build this summer, which is something I’ve been wanting for years. And he’s continuing with trail building, which makes the dogs very happy. Things are taking shape around here.

I have been spinning and weaving in the evenings and on rainy days and continue to grow my flock of wheels. My latest find was another dusty antique store treasure imprinted with the “Thomson” in the table.

I was thrilled. There was a Thomson family of wheel makers in Massachusetts in the 18th and 19th centuries, headed by the patriarch Archibald, who is reputed to have made the first treadle spinning wheel in this country. They were Scots-Irish from Ulster and, interestingly, George has Thomson ancestors who settled in the same area of Massachusetts a few decades after these Thomsons. An “H” Thomson migrated to Maine at some point, likely around the time of the Revolutionary War, and made beautiful wheels, with simple Shaker-style lines. This wheel looks like one of his, although the “H” is worn off.

Amazingly, the flyer assembly was all intact, although the wooden tension screw was totally frozen. I cleaned her up and finally got the screw unbound.

She is one my sweetest spinners and her wood is exquisite.

There are some gorgeous modern wheels with beautiful wood (that cost a small fortune), but–to me–they just don’t compare to the glowing wood on these old beauties (which go for a song), that has been mellowed by time and the touch of so many hands over hundreds of years.

I also bought a little 19th century tape loom. It’s amazing to think that just a few hundred years ago, every imaginable kind of tie and strap was woven at home on these little looms–often by the youngest and oldest family members.

The loom I bought has a foot pedal that raises and lowers two shafts and has a small beater for fast, efficient weaving. The two shafts are only designed for eight warp threads, which means it was used to weave a very simple straightforward tape.

In fact, the loom likely was used to make lamp wicks, with no design at all. I have been experimenting with putting multiple threads in each heddle and some warps between the heddles, to create a middle shed that I can manipulate with my fingers to make some simple designs. I’m quite enjoying it.

Happy May … and June … and July. At the rate I’m going, it will probably be midsummer before I post again!

This past year was dog-dominated. Zoe’s illness and death, building a dog fence, searching for a pup and adult dog—we had eleven months straight of thinking about dogs. But now our little pack is complete again.

Our house feels satisfyingly full of life and just right. We can finally can turn our full attention to other things—and bring the dogs along.

So, here we are, heads full of outside projects and bodies eager for physical work–primed and ready to go. Only to be thwarted by weather. Last year, March found us pruning, moving our raised beds, digging drainage, and preparing for planting.

Last March

Not this year.

This March

Closer up, the little swale is solid ice.

March has been kind of a brat. The deep snow from our February storms lingered for weeks.

By the time March pranced in, all lamb-like and sweet, it was mostly melted. The soft air, smelling of new growth, lasted for two brief days before we descended into an icebox.

Lilac buds before the cold

Sticky pine buds

Not a surprise. March in Maine is notorious for weather extremes. And, sure enough, after the first cold, mild weather returned, which combined with longer daylight teased us for a few days into thinking that spring might be approaching. I walked the property looking for the emergence of some of the bulbs that I planted last fall. Not a one. I was disappointed, but not for long, because temperatures plummeted again giving us the coldest weather that we’ve experienced since we moved to Maine.

New poppy growth on the south side of the house had emerged and then got zapped by the cold.

The temperature kept dropping after we got up yesterday until it hit 4 below zero (Fahrenheit) mid-morning, with screeching winds, driving wind-chills to about 25 below.

Perhaps the bulbs knew better than to poke their delicate stems into an impending arctic blast. If my bees were still alive, I would be very worried about them surviving these extreme variations in temperature.

Unhappy rhododendrons

This late deep chill cannot be easy on our local wildlife. The ground is frozen solid and any emerging shoots have had all succulence stripped by the cold. We have seen a few signs of the fox near last year’s den, but our fenced-in area comes much closer to the den now, so I suspect the fox will not be raising its kits there this year. We have had plenty of rabbit tracks in our woods, but very little sign of deer this winter.

Therefore, we were surprised when, during the warm spell, we saw a dead deer, lying about twenty feet off of the road in a field on the hillside down our road toward town. It was a full-sized adult and had already been partially eaten by some largish animal. We suspected coyotes, but there weren’t evident tracks and little sign of a struggle.

Lots of deer tracks on the roadside but no coyote tracks

A neighbor had seen a deer the day before that had seemed “not quite right,” so we wonder if it had been grazed and injured by a car and then easily taken down by a coyote or, perhaps just died on its own. We did hear coyotes howling the next night, for the first time all year, right below our property. In any case, the deer carcass attracted eagles, which hunkered in the large trees lining the field, overlooking the bolder crows and ravens. The smaller birds cawed and called at the eagles, flying up to the trees near them, whether to try to warn them off or not, I don’t know, but it was fascinating to watch.

Immature bald eagle. He was huge.

The cold is not all bad. It has given me time to finish up my indoor winter projects. Spring cleaning—ugh, I hate housework—is underway. And I finished my kaleidoscope quilt.

The quilt is made of fabrics that reflect our life here in Maine—foxes, birds, cows, the ocean, the sky, garden flowers and vegetables, wild flowers and plants, apples, bees—all in there, in little triangular pieces, forming larger circle-like kaleidoscope designs.

New potholders from the quilt scraps. That’s a stuffed opossum on the floor, not a dead animal.

Now that the quilt is finished, the sewing area–with a bank of southern-facing windows—will be converted to our seedling nursery.

I started onions and leeks two weeks ago and am planting celery, chard, lettuce, and herbs today. Last year I used a variety of pots for the seedlings—peat, plastic, and yogurt cups. The best planters by far were gallon water jugs. I poked drainage holes with scissors and cut around the middle. I left a hinged area last year, but probably will cut off the hinges as I plant more this year, because the hinged tops take up too much room.

Little greenhouses

I left the tops down, cloche-like, when I wanted an extra green-house effect and lifted them up when it got hot and moist. I had read about this method on-line and decided to give it a try. They worked brilliantly. I didn’t need a heat mat or grow lamps. Granted we get a lot of sun in our windows, but the greenhouse effect of the bottle really made a difference in heating the soil. When it’s time to harden off, again the tops serve to heat the soil and protect the plants from wind when they are set outside. They transplant easily and I had no problems with damping off (I did with some of the peat pots). I was converted and will be using only water jugs this year.

While it feels like mid-winter outside, the chickadees’ sweet mating calls continue, and we have warm soil and seedlings inside. Happy March.